“The non-acceptance of the Russian and Chinese vaccines for the green pass is creating enormous damage: infrastructures, services are suffering, and it adds damage to those who are already in a serious situation,” declared Jelinic. Suffice it to say that in cities like Rome, Chinese tourism had become the third market for arrivals in 2019 that the European tourism year started from Venice in 2018, redesigning the silk road.
Some markets are at a net loss, but the Russian and Chinese markets no longer exist. These are tourist flows that weigh heavily in the balance of payments for the numerous services associated with travel (personal shopper, tickets for events, museums, personalized visits).
“Cities like Rome, Florence, Venice live thanks and above all to a foreign tourism that has been absent for too long, and there are travel agencies and tour operators who have a product exclusively focused on these markets, so it is complicated, if not impossible, to diversify,” says the FIAVET Predsjedniče.
“The risk of selling off our tourist assets to foreign multinationals is just around the corner. The bans cannot fail to force us to reflect on the consequences of these choices,” Jelinic added.
The FIAVET President points out that even the UN is expressing itself in this sense.
Svjetska turistička organizacija (UNWTO) welcomed the request from the World Health Organization (WHO) to lift or relax travel restrictions. “It is now clear that travel restrictions are not effective in suppressing the international spread of the virus as the WHO has declared in recent days,” Jelinic said, “It is the same WHO that in the last meeting in Geneva noted that the health limitations can cause economic and social damage.”
International tourist arrivals worldwide plummeted 73% in 2020, dropping to levels not seen in 30 years. And while tourism experienced a modest improvement in the third quarter of 2021, international arrivals between January and September 2021 were still 20% below 2020 levels and 76% below 2019 levels according to UNWTO podataka.
“If we do not open up to all foreigners and in particular to the Russian and Asian market, other competing countries will,” concluded Jelinic. “And in addition to losing points in the world tourism ranking, we will lose the opportunity for a sustainable recovery integrated with that of the rest of the world.”
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